The Passage of Time
by Your Friend Raichel
Summary: Mabel and Dipper have faced their future before, but that was a long time ago...


Mabel Pines sat on her bed, her old, oversized sweater pulled over her knees and the collar pulled up to just below her nose. She stared, unseeing, down at Waddles, plopped down over her feet, absently running her hand over his back.

She had her own room now, and that was fine. That had been true for a few years. It wasn't a problem - she and her brother were still close, still just a call down the hall. Still within reach at a moment's notice.

For now.

There was a single knock on the door, and it opened, gaining Mabel's attention.

"Hey, Mabel, did you-" Dipper cut himself short as he caught sight of his sister. He hesitated for a moment before prompting: "Sweater town?"

Mabel shrugged, turning her attention back to Waddles.

Dipper put away his phone, his sister's wellbeing overriding whatever object of interest he had found on the internet, and dropped down onto a beanbag in the corner of her room, his long limbs sticking over the sides. They could both remember a time when the pair of them fit on that beanbag easily, with room to spare. But these days, not so much.

"So, is Sweater Town accepting visitors right now?" he clarified.

She tossed him another glance before nodding.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really," she admitted, voice low. Most other people would not have been able to make out the muffled words, but eighteen years of experience made the pair quite adept at inter-twin communication.

They sat in silence a moment before Dipper brought up the looming terror:

"It's the whole college thing, isn't it?"

"Sweater Town!" Mabel insisted, her head popping out from the turtleneck for a moment, before it was pulled back up. "We don't talk about that kinda' stuff in Sweater Town."

Dipper frowned,

"Mabel, come on-"

"NO! I don't wanna talk about it."

"You'll feel better if you talk about it," he pointed out.

"We've already talked about it," she grumbled, "it's all inevitable. But that doesn't make it feel any better."

"We knew this was coming for a long time-"

"No we didn't!" Mabel snapped, "Maybe that college was coming, maybe that we'd go to different schools. But we didn't know we wouldn't even get a month of summer together!"

Dipper couldn't fault her there. They'd been expecting to go to different schools for years (though that didn't stop them from looking for one that might work for them both) - the thing that had really blind-sided them was the condition of Dipper's acceptance into college. He had to attend a college-prep summer course. He had to spend most of his summer with three roommates learning the ropes of his dream school, because for all of his nerdiness and organization abilities, he was abysmal at test taking. And, for reasons he could not truly fathom, tests still mattered if you wanted to get into college.

He sighed,

"I know we're not getting that last summer 'hurrah' you wanted," he acknowledged. " _we_ wanted," he corrected himself.

They sat there together, glum.

"You- you won't be here anymore," Mabel sniffled. "I might could've dealt with starting fresh without you, but now- now I have to live here, by myself, until I go off to college!"

"I come back for three weeks," he offered half-heartedly. "we can spend a little more time together."

"It's not the same," Mabel muttered. Dipper knew she was right. "and I know we've gone over this before, it just- every day it gets closer, and sometimes- sometimes it's just kind of overwhelming."

Dipper contemplated things for a moment, sitting in the bean bag chair, the room consumed by a metaphorical dark shadow.

He got up, and went to sit beside his sister, curling up in a ball just the same way. Waddles opened one eye to look at him, before contentedly returning to sleep. The twins leaned their heads together.

"It sucks," Dipper acknowledged.

"Yeah."

"I mean, I don't have as much time to psyche up for it, either," he pointed out. "I'm not ready to make new friends! Hell, I've barely ever made new friends in my life! We sort of work as a unit," he said, gesturing between them, "and if one of us made their own friends, it was always you."

"That's not-" Mabel thought it over for a moment. "oh, wow, you're right."

"All of our friends are _mutual_ friends. I don't really have any to myself."

"Well, without you my grades are gonna' suck!" she retorted, "I don't know how I'll do math without your help! No stupid professor is gonna' get my brain like you do!"

"Mabel, that's their job!" Dipper laughed, "I'm sure they can figure you out."

"Whatever," she muttered, "it still sucks."

"It still sucks," Dipper agreed.

As they sat there, propping each other up, Dipper's mind wandered. Past the stress of the upcoming summer course, past social anxiety and missing Mabel, through their dreams of a summer to be remembered for years to come…

… a summer to remember…

Struck with an idea, Dipper shuffled to the foot of the bed, turning to face his sister.

"OK, so, hear me out," he began as she tugged her head out of Sweater Town, "I know we can't have the great summer we talked about, but we have four weeks. Let's use it wisely. Let's go back."

"Back?"

"Let's spend our time back where everybody knows us. Let's go back where we belong. Let's spend four weeks in Gravity Falls."

"Are you sure?" Mabel asked, "What about Mom and Dad?"

"True," Dipper acknowledged, "and given the time it'd take to get out there… two weeks! Let's spend two weeks in Gravity Falls! It'll take us about a week to get it set up, and then we'll spend the week before I go here at home, but we'll take two weeks out of the middle in Oregon. The Stans are even there! They drove up after graduation! It'll be great! We can see all our old buds! It'll be just like when we were kids."

"Are you sure?"

"I am if you are," he assured her.

"We're going to Gravity Falls?"

"We're going to Gravity Falls."


End file.
